As pollsters, it's our job to keep a finger on the pulse of the American electorate. As women, we also take an interest in finding out what female voters are actually thinking. It's never as simple as commentators want you to think.
The Winners Circle: Primary Campaign Consultants - Congressman John Ratcliffe
Randall Gutermuth, COO of American Viewpoint, was part of the campaign team that helped John Ratcliffe win in a contested primary battle in the 4th Congressional District in Texas.
American Viewpoint Wins AAPC Republican Pollster of the Year Pollie
At Friday night’s American Association of Political Consultants Pollie Awards dinner in San Diego, American Viewpoint received the Campaign Excellence Award for Republican Pollster of the Year for its development of the firm’s Age Stratification Model that was put to the test in the Louisiana 5th Congressional District special election.
GOP PAC targets young women - Politico
Sen. Kelly Ayotte says a new Republican women’s political action committee is “Democrats’ worst nightmare.”
Surrounded in a room full of 400 people, primarily young women, Ayotte gave the keynote address at the launch party of RightNOW Women PAC on Tuesday night.
…
GOP pollster Linda DiVall, who also addressed the group, echoed Boehner in saying the turnout amazed her. “Looking around the room … I have chills,” she said. “Where have you all been?”
DiVall relayed a few polling numbers to the crowd, harping on Republicans’ failure to convince voters that they care about people like them.
“You cannot win an election if you are losing on a dimension by 63 points,” she said.
Can Democrats rehabilitate Obamacare? - CBS News
For two months, while HealthCare.gov underwent major technical repairs, President Obama and Democrats floundered: The president was increasingly apologetic for the stalled components of the Affordable Care Act, while congressional Democrats proved readier than ever to work with Republicans to change the law...
...Lawmakers knew from the start that some Americans would be dropped from their plans in the private market (as a portion of consumers are every year), but they assumed that they'd be able to get new coverage via Obamacare -- the website problems complicated that.
Republican strategist and pollster Randy Gutermuth of the firm American Viewpoint doesn't see that problem going away -- if anything, more problems with the law will surface, he said."
The abysmal rollout of the website is just a precursor to what's going to happen," he said, arguing "there's a reason all this implementation was delayed until [Mr. Obama] was reelected in the first place."
Mr. Obama tried to appease those losing coverage by allowing insurers to extend existing policies for another year, but Gutermuth said such temporary "patchwork fixes" will only force Democrats to confront these problems closer to the 2014 election…
Healthcare Part 3 of 3 - Voters Express Concern About IRS’s Role in Implementing Health Reform
Healthcare Part 2 of 3 - Many Voters are Wary of the Impact of Health Exchanges
The Economist - More Than Half the Electorate - Will the "War on Women" Rhetoric Help Democrats?
Linda DiVall, President and CEO of American Viewpoint, comments on the Democrats attacking the GOP on women's issues.
From the article:
...
Relatively few voters, however, base their votes on abortion or other “social issues”. Just 4% of respondents to the latest Economist/YouGov poll rated abortion as “the most important issue”; 31% chose the economy. Linda DiVall, a Republican pollster, argues that Democrats keep banging on about the war on women purely as a distraction from the disappointing state of the economy. If Republicans were to find a more compelling way to talk about that, she believes, it would render the Democratic attacks moot.
Satisfied With Their Health Insurance Coverage, A Plurality of Voters Say They Will be Worse Off Under ObamacareMost Think Premiums Will Increase Because of the Law
St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Pollster offers warnings on GOP's 'woman problem'
By Bill Lambrecht
WASHINGTON • Pollster Linda DiVall has polled for GOP presidential hopefuls and helped send numerous Republicans to Congress.
Her Virginia-based company, American Viewpoint, has conducted surveys for more than a dozen Missouri Republicans, among them Roy Blunt, Jim Talent, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Ed Martin, Jo Ann Emerson and Jason Smith.
In surveys for political and corporate clients, DiVall keeps a close eye on women's perception of Republicans.
What she charted in a survey released this week might cause heartburn among GOP strategists. She also offers a tonic or two.
"The clear thing that stands out is that perceptions of the Republican Party are pretty terrible," she said in an interview.
Divall found negative views of the GOP in all but three of 11 groups of female registered voters.
In her online survey, Republicans in Congress held favorable ratings only with groups she identifies as Medicare Women, Married Homemakers and a segment of the female electorate she calls The Disenchanted.
Republicans fared especially poorly in the category of Suburban Women (54-36 percent unfavorable).
She described as the core of the Democratic coalition groups she calls Social Media Mavens, Single Professionals, Married Moderates and Millennials.
What should Republicans do?
First, stop putting so many white males on the ballot.
"Whenever possible, we should recruit a woman or a Hispanic or an Asian instead of looking at the typical male state legislative politician," she said.
"The more we can broaden and diversify the face of the party, the better off we'll be in terms of trying to change the image of the party so that we're more in sync with America today."
Republicans, she added, need to offer candidates with "friendly faces, not negative doomsayers."
GOP politicians who reflexively pan proposals for new revenues might want to know that the subject of taxes doesn't rank high on the meter of women's economic worries.
Women have concerns about the economy, Divall said. But the top four are: retirement; health care costs; paying the bills and affording a home, she found.
DiVall found openings for her party. Female respondents in every group answered a survey question by saying that government is "doing too much" rather than needing to do more.
In Democratic-leaning groups, that concern may well be that government is spending too much time on proposals related to abortion and marriage equality.
Even so, concerns about an intrusive bureaucracy plays into a dominant GOP theme.
And even though major parts of the Affordable Care Act are not yet in effect, nearly half of women say they expect health care premiums to rise in coming years.
"That's another opportunity for Republicans," DiVall said. "The problem is talking about consequences of something that's not in existence. But the fact that so many women think their premiums will increase suggests that disenchantment is going to be rather speedy here."
In general, Republicans need to stress the disconnect between Obama administration policies and the economic realities of women's lives.
She noted the GOP should worry that so many young women are aligning with Democrats. That was born out by responses from women ages 18 to 29, who favored Democrats over Republicans by a margin of more than 3-1.
"When we were young, when Ronald Reagan was the face of the party, younger people were very attracted to the Republican Party," she said.
"We really are at a significant crossroads."
